Sheryl Crow

While there is something seemingly unfair about judging Sheryl Crow's newest release Detours based on the successes of the now fifteen year old Tuesday Night Music Club, it is increasingly hard not to when taking into consideration the scope of her work in that time. The comparison is bolstered by Crow's renewed collaboration with producer and songwriter Bill Bottrell (the two worked together on Tuesday Night and 1996's self titled Sheryl Crow). The standard of expectations has not only been set, but the proverbial bar has been raised.

Defying her previous conventions, Crow opens Detours with the raw acoustic "God Bless This Mess," painting the dreary picture of family life changed by war, terrorism and economic difficulties; its tone is dismal and its message haunting. From the beginning, Detours makes it quite clear that Crow is stripping away not all, but some, of the mainstream pop elements that have helped her climb to the top of Billboard charts, replacing them with darker themes, political statements, and reflections on emotional and personal struggles.

Tackling her bout with breast cancer, Crow wrote "Make It Go Away." The ballad uses peaceful vocal tones juxtaposed with her painful cries in the closing refrain ("make it go away") to musically capture the emotional pain caused by the disease. One of the strongest moments of the song "Now That You're Gone" is the optimism found in Crow's ended engagement with cyclist Lance Armstrong. The messages are strong, but the songs themselves aren't necessarily the strongest on the record.

Detours ‘ highlights are "Out of Our Heads," "Gasoline" and "Love is Free." Although their political connotations are significant, the upbeat tempos, catchy hooks and sing along refrains echo Crow's earlier works. "Out of Our Heads" stands alone as the catchiest track on the album, both lyrically and musically, evoking warm emotions and a promise for unity and peace. The futuristic evangelism of "Gasoline" takes place in 2017 and anecdotally examines the oil crisis. While "Love Is Free" references the Pontchartrain in New Orleans, and brings the Louisiana feel to the song through lyrical allusions and NO’s iconic brass instruments.

There is no shortage of variety on Detours . It may very well be Sheryl Crow's strongest and most complete album since Tuesday Night Music Club, and if Detours is meant to be a detour at all, it appears the purpose is only to stray slightly lyrically and explore the topics that seem most important to Crow today. There is, however, no straying from Crow's brand of acoustic rock that has become her musical staple. The result is a knockout punch that delivers from start to finish. If anything is certain following Crow's sixth release, it is that she is quickly cementing herself as one of the premier pop-folk artists of this generation.

— Andrew Gargano
02.06.08

Nothing puts life in perspective like a brush with death, and that truism is brought into blazing relief on Sheryl Crow's sixth album, Detours. Crow survived a battle with breast cancer in February 2006. Around that same time, she separated from fiancé Lance Armstrong and, roughly a year later, she adopted a son. That's a decade's worth of life packed into two years, but these highs and lows -- or Detours as she calls them -- have led Crow to produce her liveliest, weirdest album since 1996's messy masterpiece Sheryl Crow. On that record, Crow shook up her success by undercutting the retro-rock of Tuesday Night Music Club with loping looped beats and a skewed lyricism that kept even bright tunes like "A Change Will Do You Good" slightly off-kilter, but ever since that album her records grew increasingly mannered, as she whittled away her eccentricities. All those eccentricities return on Detours, partially due to that tidal wave of life events, but also to the revival of her relationship with producer Bill Bottrell, the man who helmed Tuesday Night Music Club. Bottrell and Crow had an acrimonious split during the making of the second album -- several of their collaborations did make that record, including "Maybe Angels" and "Hard to Make a Stand" -- and while Sheryl sustained her stardom, no producer let her be as loose or revealing as Bottrell, as he helped give her pop tunes odd, distinguishing touches and kept her ballads spare and haunting. These gifts are put into sharp relief on Detours -- perhaps a shade too sharp, actually, as the album is divided into a half of careening protest pop and a half of moody introspection, which may showcase how Bottrell captures Crow's distinct moods, but doesn't quite give this album the classicist flow of her first records. Even if the album slows down a bit too much on its second stretch -- the one containing unadorned confessionals of broken engagements ("Diamond Ring"), cancer ("Make It Go Away [Radiation Song]"), and adoption ("Lullaby for Wyatt") -- the individual moments all work according to their own merits, while that first half contains Crow's most compelling music in years. Much of this is explicitly political -- references to war, petroleum, and New Orleans all run rampant -- but compared to her sometimes didactic public speeches, her socially conscious writing is surprising, filled with odd juxtapositions and sly jokes. That sense of humor alone is a relief, but it's married to music that's restless, encompassing the worldbeat textures of "Peace Be Upon Us" (featuring Ahmed Al Himi on backing vocals), the lopsided shuffle of "Love Is Free," and the sultry '70s Stones swagger of "Gasoline." Crow hasn't been this free or fine since Sheryl Crow, but there is an emotional directness on Detours that makes this a progression, not a retreat, and with any luck, this album isn't a one-time journey down a side road but rather the touchstone for the next act in her career. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide